Happy At Last

08/20/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Jeff Lorez

"A lot of things are just coming out of me right now. I'm seeing things that I never saw before through the eyes of someone that loves and through the eyes of a woman," says Mary J. Blige, sunk deep into the plushness of her sofa in her suite at the Rhiga Royal hotel in midtown Manhattan. However, she adds, "I'm not a monster, but there are a lot of things that I still have to correct. My temper. It's improved because it used to be ridiculous. It's tamed now, but when it's unleashed it's worse than ever."

Hasn't that always been the mercurial nature of the undisputed queen of hip-hop soul? At times she seems mellow, sweet, and peaceful, but push the wrong buttons and not too far beneath the surface lies a defiant, rebellious round-the-way-girl, able to spew out street-smart, vitriolic wrath at the drop of a hat. Still, her fourth studio album, simply entitled Mary, captures Blige at her most mature to date. Those rough edges, though still in evidence, have been worn down over eight years in the music-industry fast lane.

It's been a long hard road since Blige changed the face of female R&B with her debut, What's The 411?, in 1992 (1994's My Life and 1996's Share My World were her subsequent studio albums). Lessons have certainly been learned along the way. "Seeing people cursing out their record company is a no-no," she cautions. "Don't ever do that sh-t. I learned that there's a penalty for that that you don't know but it happens. If you're cursing out the president of the company and saying, 'F--k you,' then he'll say, 'F--k you,' but in another way. You'll see him throughout your career saying, 'F--k you.'"

These days Blige is on more than good terms with Jay Boberg, the president of her record label; in fact, Boberg personally suggested that Mary record Diane Warren's emotive ballad "Give Me You" for her new album. Furthermore, Blige is even on pretty good terms with President of the United States!

"I've never been nervous in my life before, but I was kinda nervous about meeting the President," she says of being introduced to President Clinton at a benefit concert at the White House with a host of other musical celebs. "But Clinton is mad cool! He struck me as being a very regular person--not at all stuffy. I can't speak on what he gets up to in his personal life," she adds with a chuckle, "but just as a person he struck me as being very nice."

Speaking of meeting high-profile personalities, it's fitting that Blige's coming of age has been aided and abetted by a who's-who of rock 'n' soul royalty. Guitar god Eric Clapton ("He introduced himself to me as 'Eric Clapton, your biggest fan'") helps out on the aforementioned "Give Me You"; Aretha Franklin duets on the riff-laden, Babyface-penned "Don't Waste Your Time"; Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis lend a hand on "The Love I Never Had"; and Lauryn Hill has written and produced the first single, "All That I Can Say." Even ex-beau K-Ci Hailey duets on the gritty, "Not Lookin'," and Elton John relives "Benny And The Jets" glory on the brutally honest "Deep Inside." Musically and lyrically, Blige is baring all.

"What 'Deep Inside' is saying is that if you don't care or love me for who I am inside, then I can't get with you. Men can't get in my space right now," she offers about her personal life with a hint of exasperation. "I don't know what it is, but it just won't happen--and I'm not pushing them away. I'm there, trying to be there. Is it me? Who I am as a woman? I just don't know. Maybe it's all for the better. Maybe it's because I need to focus on Mary J. Blige right now and not a man."

But that's not to say Blige hasn't got her romantic fantasies.

"If you take off the prostitute part at the beginning, my favorite film character would be something like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman," she gushes warmly. "I would just love to be treated like that and have somebody like that fall in love with me."

But doesn't she feel she's setting her sights a little too high, expecting a millionaire to waltz into her life and whisk her off her feet? Would she, for instance, date a guy who worked at the local grocery store, even if he was a little bit intimidated by who she was at first?

"I wouldn't, because it's going to be a problem," she replies flatly. "One, you have no reason to be intimidated by me because I'm not some arrogant bourgeois bitch. I'm very down-to-earth. You can hang with me, you can talk to me, and I'm not flashy. I have a lot of things but you're not gonna see all of it.

"I need to feel comfortable," she continues, signing the check for the room-service breakfast (scrambled eggs, cheese, asparagus) that's just arrived at her suite. "I don't need to feel like everybody's jealous of me. But that's what I go through everyday. Women look at me now, like, 'Bitch!' There's nothin' I can do about what I've become. A lot of women look at me and envy the fact that I still have myself together. I'm not fat. I look nice. I feel good inside. Like today is a bad day for me. My hair's a mess [a bird's nest of straw-blonde and pink, before her hair stylist, who's waiting in an adjoining room, goes to work on it] but it don't matter, because my inside is shining. So many women don't know how to do that. I didn't have to sleep with a man to get my record deal or to get the jewelry I have. I worked for it."

And Blige's self-improvement mission doesn't stop there. With her Chanel sneakers, denim pedal-pushers, low-cut red crepe top, and rediscovered bone structure, it's a svelte, more streamlined Mary J. Blige that's seated in front of me, compared to when we last met a year ago.

"I've been working out. I'm on a 'caveman' diet." No carbohydrates, she explains. "I drink a lot of water to flush me out. But a lot of it is mental, too. Once you take a lot of stress off, you automatically lose some pounds. I get my crunches in every night. I really want to be fine!" she laughs.

Indeed, for possibly the first time in her career, Blige is looking at the big picture, the overall package. She wants to look as good as she sounds.

"I went into this album with no fear," she states proudly. "Like there's nothin' I can't conquer on here and I think I broke down walls. That's how my life is now. I'm walking without fear, and if there are mistakes to be made, I'll make them, learn from them and keep on going."